


Dream in Blue

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:04:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21836575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: Alyssa thinks that maybe, just maybe, she’s been waiting for Dan Pfeiffer her entire life.
Relationships: Alyssa Mastromonaco & Dan Pfeiffer, Dan Pfeiffer/Jon Lovett
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38
Collections: Crooked Secret Santa 2019





	Dream in Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for eltigrechino, who asked for the Dan and Alyssa dynamic for Crooked Secret Santa 2019! They dropped out of the exchange, but I hope you all enjoy it anyway, because I loved writing it!

“He wants to change the b section,” Jon grumbles, falling into the seat across from Alyssa. His plate is overflowing with the Holiday Inn’s attempts at bacon and eggs piled high on top of a self-made waffle that he definitely didn’t let cook long enough. “For the fifth time since yesterday. Does it even count as an education _plan_ if we change it every other hour?”

Alyssa laughs and snags a slice of bacon from the top of his plate, dancing away from Jon’s slapping fingers. “Good thing most of the media hasn’t even realized we’re running yet.”

“They’re never going to,” Jon sighs, stealing her coffee in retaliation. “Not until the Senator decides rather or not he actually wants to run.”

Alyssa narrows her eyes. Jon’s not- well, Jon’s not wrong. Alyssa can feel the Senator’s indecision filter through their bond whenever he’s too tired to keep his walls in place, which is more and more often lately. Late at night, when Alyssa’s finally drifting off to sleep, she can practically hear the _what if I made the wrong decision?_ thrumming through the Senator’s nerves. Right before he takes the stage, she’s overwhelmed by dark pulses of anxiety and the untapped potential he’s still shying away from. Early afternoons on the tour bus, when he’s stretched out on a two-seater so that every time she brushes his hand or trips over his feet she gets flashes of the pressure that always sits so squarely over his shoulders.

It’s one thing for the Senator to have his own concerns, though, and quite another for Jon to voice them over the breakfast table at the Holiday Inn in fucking Manchester.

“Jon,” is all she says, funneling all her frustration into his name. She has plenty to spare - she’s been up for three hours already, negotiating hotel rates for the South Carolina team and arguing with Greyhound about the traveling bus in Iowa.

“I know, I know,” Jon sighs deeply, stabbing a forkful of eggs and shoveling them into his mouth. “He’s the candidate, I should keep my mouth shut and do what I’m told.”

Alyssa snorts. “When have you ever managed that?”

“I have,” Jon grouses, his fork freezing halfway to his mouth.

“Name one,” Alyssa challenges, holding her hand out and wiggling her fingers. “And give me my coffee back.”

“I don’t tell you off all the time.”

“Because you’re afraid of me,” Alyssa shrugs, “not because you have a functioning filter.”

Jon groans, “I can’t even argue with that,” as he slides out from behind their table, his long legs creaking as he straightens. "I'll get more coffee."

Alyssa shakes her head, chuckling to herself until her phone lights up. Fucking Greyhound. She answers with, “I swear to god, if you’re not calling to confirm that the Obama for America bus was actually made in America-”

She’s most of the way through cursing every man, woman, and child the unwitting Greyhound employee has ever met when Jon slides back into her view, two to-go cups and a breakfast sandwich in his hand, tipping his head toward the door. Alyssa frowns, ending the call with “I don’t care about what hoops you have to jump through, I have a whole fucking blow torch, just get it done,” and struggles out of the booth to meet him. These long strings of generic hotel mattresses aren’t doing her back any favors, either.

Jon hands her one of the cups - a splash of heavy cream and half a pack of sugar, just like she likes it - and takes a long step towards the front door. “The Senator wants an early start. Plouffe and that new communications guy are apparently meeting us outside in a few minutes.”

Alyssa wraps her fingers tightly around her cup as they step out into the freezing January morning. “Oh?”

“Some hot shot who used to work for Evan Bayh,” Jon shrugs. “Plouffe’s been singing his praises for weeks. Dan something or other.”

“Pfeiffer,” Alyssa suppliess, her breath catching as she stops at the edge of the sidewalk.

“Right. He’s supposed to be a messaging wizard and-” Jon turns his head, taking a step back to where Alyssa’s stopped. “Alyssa?”

Alyssa’s heard Dan Pfeiffer’s name whispered by the dregs of the DC rumor mill. _Too big for his britches_, DNC officials gossip in the back rooms of Legal Seafood. _He’ll be running a communications’ department soon, if he doesn’t end up on his ass in the street first _staffers prophesize over cocktails at the newest speakeasy on 14th. _He has some wild ideas_, others whisper, as if he, alone, is responsible for Daschle’s failed re-election bid and Bayh’s disastrous presidential false start. 

Alyssa’s never paid the rumors much attention. The Democratic Party is infamous for churning through bright young minds and spitting them out again, and Alyssa’s philosophy has always been to ignore them until they’ve proven their resilience. It’s a policy that’s served her well over the years.

Or, it’s a policy that had been serving her well, until the trouble she’s never wanted to borrow steps out of a black Ford Taurus with long legs, soft blue eyes, and a long, thin peacoat that is utterly inappropriate for the weather. Alyssa’s chest tugs, a warm pinch of attraction that has nothing to do with the way his suit pants hang loose over his hips or the way the snow lands on his eyelashes and everything to do with the nervous way he runs his fingers through his hair and the way his tie hangs askew around his neck.

“Alyssa?” Jon repeats, tapping his shoulder against hers. “Do you know him?”

Alyssa fights against the invisible string drawing her forward, forward, _forward_ and looks up at Jon. “No, no, I’ve never met him.” 

“Are you sure?” Jon frowns, turning back to look at Plouffe and Pfeiffer. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Alyssa swallows. She is sure, except no, no, she isn’t sure at all. Her whole body aches, like it’s simultaneously pushing towards and pulling away from the force that’s settled over her, and her chest is stuck in the middle, gaping around a hole she never knew was there. She can’t be sure, not with a driveway and half the Obama staff between them, but she thinks maybe, just maybe, she’s been waiting for Dan Pfeiffer her entire life.

***

“Before we get started,” the Senator calls, already twelve minutes into their scheduled ten minute morning briefing. He hasn’t quite learned to make his voice carry through anything but the quiet reverence of the senate office yet, and Alyssa doesn’t need to feel his frustration through their bond to know that he’s rounded the corner from good-humored to aggrieved.

Alyssa slides her fingers between her lips and whistles. The table quiets instantly, and she shrugs at him, making a _you have the floor_ motion.

“Thank you,” he sighs. “As I was saying, before we get started, I wanted to introduce our newest member. Pfeiffer comes with glowing recommendations from the minority leader’s office, among others. He’s got some big ideas, but I’ve asked him to interview each of you over the next few days before he presents us all with a full communications plan. When he comes to talk to you, please be courteous and answer him truthfully. My feelings won’t be hurt.”

A ripple of laughter rolls through the small Holiday Inn conference room. Alyssa presses _send _on an updated version of the day’s schedule, before gazing around the room. They’re a small but scrappy group of senate staffers and longtime Democratic Party aides, pushed to the sidelines for any of a myriad of reasons. Alyssa doesn’t ask too many questions and hopes that, in return, they won’t ask why the Senator places so much stock in an inexperienced young woman who’d be less out of place at Woodstock than a presidential campaign.

Alyssa still doesn't know how to answer those questions. She wasn’t expecting much when, what feels like years ago now, she got a call for what she assumed was a pity breakfast interview. It had been going exactly as she’d expected - the Senator, then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama, was kind and interesting, with broad sweeping ideas that far outreached his potential as the junior senator from Illinois and little need for a director of scheduling - when they’d reached for a scone at the same time. She’d only had a momentary flash of embarrassment, before it had been replaced by a flood of curiosity and a to do list a mile long that Alyssa _knew _wasn’t hers.

“Well,” he had said, “I guess you’re hired after all. Your first job is to figure out how to fit your salary into our budget.”

Professional bonds aren’t rare - almost everyone in the Obama inner circle has one - but instantaneous professional bonds are. Especially with the Senator, who is notoriously stingy with what he lets through even with those he’s bonded to. Even Jon, who seems to share half of the Senator’s brain most days, took a few months to develop that kind of bond. Sometimes, Alyssa wonders if she’d actually know more by reading his body language than by digging through the parts of his mind he allows them into.

Not that Alyssa knows how bonds are supposed to feel. She’d been getting a little old for a bond of any kind when her professional bond had burst to live under the Senator’s fingers, and she’s definitely too old for any other kind of bond now. She’d been sad about it once, after making it all the way through the Universities of Vermont _and _Wisconsin without so much as a peep from her bond centers. But as she’s gotten older, she’s settled into the warmth of her own presence. Even her professional bond - so much stronger and more important than most people get in a lifetime - is too much to handle, sometimes, or to ask for, always.

A slip of curiosity slides through her bond and Alyssa shakes herself. The Senator and, she realizes belatedly, the entire table are turned towards Pfeiffer. He’s leaning forward in his chair and even without having heard the question, Alyssa can tell that he’s smart, articulate, and well-researched. Jon is leaning halfway across the table and even Plouffe is enraptured, his ever-moving hands folded in his lap.

“That’s a good point,” the Senator nods, once he’s done. “Alyssa, see if you can add a stop in Nashua tomorrow?”

Alyssa snorts, “sure, I’ll wave my magic wand and make that happen.”

“Thanks from a grateful candidate,” he nods, reaching for his Blackberry and scrolling through his list of topics. “Now, this education speech. I have a note in here-”

“That’s me,” Jon says, uncrossing his legs and leaning closer. “I have a few questions about this morning’s edits.”

“That was actually me,” Plouffe admits. “The b section’s getting a little long in the tooth-”

“We’ve been on the campaign trail for a couple months,” Jon splutters, “if it’s already boring, then we’re in trouble.”

“Exactly,” Plouffe shrugs.

Alyssa’s heard this argument a dozen times if she’s heard it once, and she sits back in her chair, pulling up the latest schedule. They’re supposed to be spending the morning still in Manchester tomorrow, then a bus ride to Concord for an evening speech, but if she cancels their nursery home visit she can probably swing Nassua.

She makes the change, frowning at it for a minute before she feels a set of eyes on her. She looks up and across the table, to where Pfeiffer’s leaning back in his chair, his hands folded between his thighs and the spots of pink in the follows of his cheeks the only signs of the nerves he’d shown in the parking lot that morning. His eyes, so blue that they’d disappear into the cool January sky, are trained on her.

She frowns, nodding towards the Senator and Jon. Pfeiffer shakes himself, guilt shuttering over his face as he jerks his attention back to the discussion that is now bordering on an argument. Alyssa shakes her head, turning back to her laptop and saving the change. It’ll work, if she can only keep the Senator from answering every question at their morning house event. Maybe she can bring back the question bucket from the senate campaign or maybe-

“Alright, that’s enough for this morning, I think,” the Senator interrupts, cheerfully, the argument already on hold for another day, “before Alyssa drags me out with pitchforks.”

Alyssa raises an eyebrow. “I don’t need a pitchfork when I already have a magic wand.”

The Senator nods his head towards her, “you’re right, my mistake. Where to next?”

“You’re Plouffe’s for the afternoon,” Alyssa shrugs, handing them both updated versions of the schedule. “We’ll see you again at the veterans’ dinner.”

The Senator nods, his nose already in his next speech as he backs out of the room, “Favreau, you’re with us too. I really do wanna hear your ideas on this education section.”

Jon nods, scrambling after them. Alyssa snorts to herself, finishing up her email and humming to herself.

“90210.”

She jumps. Pfeiffer. Fuck. She'd thought everyone was gone, it’s not like her to forget entire people left in a room. He’s still sitting in his seat, his knee up against the table with his Blackberry resting precariously on top of it. 

Alyssa’s heart beats wildly against her ribcage, and she has the most ridiculous, scientifically impossible thought that it might leap out and cross the table to settle in the crook of his elbow. She pushes the thought away aggressively. “What?”

“That song you were humming,” Dan nods at her. “The theme song to 90210?”

Alyssa refuses to let her embarrassment show on her face. “Yeah, so? It’s a good show.”

“I know it is.” Dan smiles ruefully. “I wouldn’t recognize the song if I hadn’t seen every episode, would I?”

Alyssa pauses. There goes her traitorous heart again. “I guess not, but-”

“I like all kinds of things that might surprise you.” Dan drops the front rungs of his chair with a thunk and crosses around to her side of the table. “We can talk about them over lunch, if you’d like?”

Alyssa’s eyes narrow. “I don’t date where I work.”

Dan snorts and sits on the edge of the table, his left leg bent awfully close to her laptop. “To discuss the Obama for America campaign strategy,” he clarifies. “Plouffe said I should start with you, then work my way down.”

“Oh.” Alyssa feels her cheeks flush that ridiculous shade of red that clashes with everything she’s wearing. “Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything.”

“No harm,” Dan shrugs. His cheeks are still flushed, too, and his eyes are dancing around her face, like they’re unsure where to land. “I know it’s short notice, but, before the Senator has me running all over the state, I was hoping you could give me an hour of your time.”

Alyssa had been saving her lunch hour for another call to Greyhound headquarters and a tour of the convention center for next week’s town hall. “If you don’t mind eating on the go,” she shrugs, reaching out to close her laptop, “then you’re welcome to tag along.”

His shoulders slump in relief and he twists his Blackberry in his hands, dropping it before it gets halfway through its first juggle. “As you can see, I’m not the most coordinated guy you’ve ever met, but, I don’t mind a hamburger on the road.”

Alyssa snorts, reaching out to grab his Blackberry and hold it out for him - “I do see that” - at the same time as he reaches to get it, their fingers brushing and-

Alyssa’s mind bursts to life. She’s swept under an avalanche of _Dan Pfeiffer_. Swirls of Japanese cherry blossoms and Brazilian moqueca, the red and yellow sands of South Dakota and the purples and pinks of Outer Banks sunsets. A poem, recited from memory and the weight of _family, family, family_. Pain in his knees, the pull of tendons that is so much more bearable than the mental anguish of an impossible dream finally turned to ash. The Capitol building, an official name tag around his neck, a new dream blossoming in the base of his spine.

Alyssa knows that dream. Alyssa has that dream, too. But of course she does. Alyssa _knows _him, this young man with eyes as blue as the North Carolina tide and a reckless energy born out of years of losing and a soul that matches Alyssa’s own.

“Well.” Dan smiles ruefully, pulling his hand back to rub at his neck and the onslaught tickles to a stream, pooling at the base of her spine. “You should probably call me Dan.”

“Alyssa.” She laughs, holding out her hand before realizing what she’s doing and pulling it back. “Still up for a trip to the convention center?”

Dan grins, reaching out for his Blackberry and shoving it into his pocket. “I suspect you already know the answer to that?”

“I guess I do.” Alyssa laughs to herself. Her chest has stopped aching, the wound filling with the warmth of their platonic bond. “Come on then, we’ll find you some fried chicken along the way.”

Dan laughs in surprise, “should have known _that’s _what you’d get from my head,” and falls into step beside her.

***

Alyssa’s phone buzzes. _Do you need a raincheck?_

No, she doesn’t need a fucking raincheck. She needs a drink and she needs to erase Chad’s name from her memory and she needs everyone to stop fucking asking if she’s okay. She needs to be in bed, with a bag of popcorn and a full-sized Milky Way and the trashiest TV she can find. She needs the Democratic Party to put its money or its influence or its fucking golden boys where its mouth is and serve Chad with consequences, _any _consequences, she’d honestly take a fucking slap on the wrist at this point, as long as it stung a little.

The door bangs open, clanging to the wall inches from where she’s pacing. “Oh sorry, I didn’t see you standing there,” the boy - Alyssa recognizes him from her talk to their canvassing volunteers that morning and he is _definitely_ underage - says, his shoulders shrugging up to his ears, lazy with drink.

Alyssa isn’t naive enough to believe that she’ll get any of those things she needs, though, so she squares her shoulders, shoves her phone into her back pocket, and takes something that she wants. “Watch where you’re going, or someone might have to ask for your FBI file.”

He starts, backing away slowly, his blue eyes wide and scared under the mop of straw over his head.

Alyssa sighs, grabbing the door before it falls out of his hand, and pushes inside. It’s crowded, but she finds Dan immediately, their bond thrumming low and insistent in her chest. He’s dressed for canvassing, in a _Vote for Change_ t-shirt and a fraying hoodie. There are two drinks in front of him and Alyssa collapses into the chair he’s left for her, reaching for her vodka tonic and downing it in one go.

“Woah, killer,” Dan laughs. “There’s more where that came from, but the waitress is pretty slow, so probably not in the near future.”

Alyssa feels a slight tug at her chest and pushes back. Dan might be her soulmate, but he doesn’t get to have this. He doesn’t get to look at her pityingly, he doesn’t get to say something placating like ‘change is slow’ or ‘this is the pill we need to swallow to get a good man elected,’ and he definitely doesn’t get to judge her for trying to find some warmth in the frozen hellscape that is the New Hampshire primary. She’s judging herself enough for both of them.

“Or,” Dan says, slowly, nudging his gin and tonic towards her, “we can grab a handle of vodka on the way back to my room? I borrowed the second season of 90210 from one of the new interns and Jon said that pizza place across the street does late night slices.”

“That,” Alyssa swallows, surprised at how accurate that suggestion is and checking the edges of their bond to make sure her walls are still in place, “is the best idea you’ve had in weeks.”

Dan snorts, already standing. “I turned in my Super Tuesday communications memo this morning.”

“I know, I edited it,” Alyssa shrugs, polishing off his drink and standing to follow him back through the crowded bar. “My point still stands.”

“I should be offended by that,” Dan sighs when they get outside, “but honestly? I’ll take the compliment.”

He makes a motion to take her elbow, but she sidesteps him. “Smart man. Point me in the direction of pizza.”

She watches as he physically takes a step back from her walls and smiles the small, private, toothy smile that he reserves just for her. Alyssa falls into step beside him and stays there, a few scant inches and this one secret between them, as they polish off an entire pizza and half of another; as Dan lets her borrow sweats that she has to roll five times at the waist and an old Georgetown shirt that she grouses about for the next hour; as he sets up his laptop between them and carefully rests his arm on his pillow; as he sings through the theme song and engages her in a passionate defense of the season one finale.

It’s only then - when his eyes are starting to slip and she catches sight of his Blackberry blinking unattended to on the bedside table - that she reaches over. She dangles her fingers around his wrist, letting her walls sink slowly, brick by slow brick as she reminds herself, over and over again like a mantra, that Dan is _hers_. He always has been and will continue to be, even if they disagree on this one thing, as foundational as it feels to her, as small as it is in the grand scheme of the lives they have ahead of them.

Dan sits up, Brenda’s possible pregnancy forgotten as he reaches for Alyssa’s hand, squeezing hard as images flow between them. Chad’s face as he introduced himself after a Senate cocktail party, just days after the Senator, himself, had decided to run. Alyssa’s face, flushed and sated, as she lay back in the pillows and said, _that was fun, we should do it again sometime._ Chad’s back, as he sat up, already reaching for his boxers and unable to look at her as he said, casual and easy, _sure, maybe, if you put a good word in for me with the Senator_. The shame that doused Alyssa in ice water, set the skin on the back of her neck on fire, and drove daggers into the ache between her legs. The absolute certainty that this is it, the future of her life as a woman in the upper echelons of DC politics. The resignation she felt when she found out that Chad is here, in Manchester, interviewing with Plouffe. The empty acceptance that even now, even in the Democratic Party, men like Chad will win and keep winning.

Alyssa fights against the walls that are shaking to fall back into place, as if they can keep her from this last vestiture of her dignity. 

But Dan ducks his head, catching her eyes so that she can see as well as feel the strength of his fury as he says, his voice low and cold and steady, “I can’t make this better for you, but I can promise that he won’t ever work on this campaign.”

Alyssa shakes her head. “You can’t promise that.”

“I can.” Dan rolls over, not relinquishing her hand as he grabs for his Blackberry. He stabs at his keyboard, tension in every inch of his knuckles as he types out a text to Plouffe and turns it to her for her approval.

“Dan,” she breathes.

Dan presses send and lies back down, pulling her to his chest. “It’s not the cliff into the fiery gates of hell that I’d like to throw him off of, but it’s a start.”

Despite herself, Alyssa chuckles. She pushes herself into the bluest corner of his mind and lets her shoulders relax into the feel of his hand on her shoulder and his heartbeat under her ear. “If you find one, I get to push him first.”

“Of course,” Dan laughs, keeping her close as he reaches for the laptop and pulls it towards them. “We can’t start our search until we know what’s happening with Brenda, though.”

Alyssa can’t disagree with that.

***

Alyssa blows across her gloved fingers. “Fuck it’s cold.”

Next to her, Dey shivers, crossing her arms across her chest. “You know what would keep us warm?”

“Don’t even say it,” Alyssa glares, “or I’ll make you turn around three times, naked, right here.”

“You wouldn’t.” Dey frowns.

“She really would,” Dan says from behind them. He has a styrofoam box of chicken fingers in his hands that he’s been nursing for hours and Alyssa’s almost ready to steal one no matter how cold and gummy it has to be by now. “Superstitions aren’t superstitions on Election Day.”

Dey sighs deeply, turning back to peer through the curtains at the crowd gathered in Grant Park. Despite the freezing November temperatures, most of them have been waiting in line for hours, just for the chance to hear the President Elect speak. Possibly. Hopefully. If the polls would just close in the West.

Alyssa looks down at her watch as the crowd ignores every one of her warnings about superstitions and bursts into premature cheers at 9:55PM, central time.

She can’t blame them except … no, scratch that, she can blame them all she wants.

As her watch ticks painstakingly closer to 11PM in the east, Dan steps up next to her. He brushes her shoulder and she’s assaulted with a waterfall of feelings. The disappointment of a night in Aberdeen, a night so similar to this night, when the coin had flipped just a little more towards tails than he had wanted or expected it too. The hope that simmers under the surface of his daily cynicism. The blinding terror that if they win - and _fuck_, they just might actually fucking win - they have to _follow through_. They will hold the good of the American people in their hands. _Them_. Dan and Alyssa, who still watch Gilmore Girls after hard work days and hold grudges that last a lifetime and would rather celebrate with chicken fingers than champagne.

“Yeah,” Alyssa smiles, dropping her hand to twist her fingers with his as, on the big screen over their heads, CNN comes back from commercial break with a graphic, projecting Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. 

_Fuck_, she sends through their bond, feeling a flood of emotions filtering back to her.

“Well,” Dan squeezes, holding out the chicken fingers with his free hand. “What happens now?”

“Now.” Alyssa finally lets herself grin as she takes one and bites into it. It’s just as cold and gummy as she'd imagined and it's the most wonderful thing she’s ever tasted. “Now, we get to work.”

Dan laughs, pulling her into a tight hug. “No one else I’d rather do it with.”

***

“Where are your wine glasses?” Alyssa calls from the kitchen of Dan’s new Logan Circle townhouse. It’s filled with boxes, all half-haphazardly labeled with things like _kitchen _or _dining room_. Alyssa sighs and mutters, “unhelpful,” to herself.

Dan doesn’t answer and, after the third time she asks, Alyssa pulls her travel wine opener from her purse. She tips the bottle back, taking a swig as she walks into the living room to find him on the floor in front of his new 42 inch TV set, half-opened boxes surrounding him and a photo album in his lap. CNN is blaring, unnoticed in the background, and Alyssa rolls her eyes as she sits on the edge of the coffee table and nudges his thigh with her toes.

“Hmm?” He asks, looking up at her with a frown. “I do own wine glasses, you know?”

Alyssa sighs. “How could I, with those disasters you call box labels?”

Dan shrugs, “next time you can pack for me,” and reaches for the bottle. He takes a long swig and hands it back, her mind bursting with nostalgia as their fingers brush.

“Hopefully not for a long time yet,” she snorts, sliding down onto her knees next to him. “Whatcha looking at?”

Dan slides the album half into her lap, pointing at a picture of a little boy who can only be Dan, dressed in a red and white tie and a suit jacket that is much too big for him. He has a mop of hair curling around his ears and falling flat against his forehead. He’s wearing a name tag that says _Michael Dukakis_ in the same scraggly handwriting Dan uses now. “My first foray into American politics didn’t go so well.”

Alyssa snorts, running her finger over the picture of his chubby cheeks. “Hopefully you’ve learned something in the last thirty years.”

Dan rears his head back. “How old do you think I _am_?”

Alyssa giggles, reaching for the wine bottle and pulling it back towards her. As their fingers brush, she’s swamped with Dan’s adolescent nerves. “Dukakis is kind of an unfair trial by fire, don’t you think?”

Dan laughs. “It was aired on Japanese public broadcasting.”

“Good practice for the morning shows,” Alyssa shrugs into his shoulder, leaning close and letting herself slip further into his particular, end-of-the-world flavor anxiety, a shade she hasn’t felt since she had asked Parker Jackson to the Sadie Hawkins dance and finally realized that, yes, her high school reputation could rebound from even the most humiliating rejections. The naive terror and belief in her own agency are refreshing, compared with the very real weight of the free world that she’s been carrying on her shoulders for the past six weeks.

“In humiliation?” Dan asks as he flips the page of the photo album, meeting her pink lace prom dress memory with a photo of Dan and Bob in front of their new house in Delaware on what has to be their first day of school, both their knees knobby after a long summer. He trades her a picture of himself in a basketball uniform, his jersey hanging halfway to his knees and his ears too big for his cheeks, for the memory of Alyssa’s first stage fright at the national debate finals. He greets her memories of getting stoned in the school parking lot with a picture in the Tokyo airport, his arms wrapped around his own best friend, tears streaming down both their faces.

“Exactly.” Alyssa sits back, feeling the warmth and amusement settle into both of them, a low current buried under the weights of their new jobs. She reaches out to her professional bond, satisfied when she’s hit with the wall around the Obama’s temporary housing on Pennsylvania. “My binders can teach you a lot, but they can’t teach you that.”

Dan snorts, closing the photo album and pushing it onto his otherwise empty bookshelves. “That reminds me, Favs interviewed a speechwriter from the Hillary campaign a few days ago. He’s still gotta pass the background, but Favs is ready to hire him the moment he does. Thought I’d warn you that a binder request is coming.”

“That’ll be fun,” Alyssa laughs. “Hopefully he’ll be able to keep Favs in line.”

“Yeah,” Dan laughs, and the way he does it- a little breathless, a little fond, a little curious, Alyssa’s never heard that before, not for someone he’s, presumably, met once or twice if at all. She wishes they were touching, but by the time she stretches her hand out for his elbow, he’s leaning past her to grab for another box. “Oh, I was looking for this. Want to listen to a little _College Dropout_?”

“Not really.”

“That’s too bad,” Dan laughs, already sliding to his knees to reach for the CD player. “I’m going to turn you into a Kanye fan for die trying.”

Alyssa sighs, leaning back on her hands. “On your deathbed, then.”

“If that’s what it takes,” he grins, pressing play before leaning against the bookshelf, his ankles crossed in front of him and his toes tapping against hers. He feels a little more content than usual, a little more settled, but she chalks it up to finally moving into the townhouse after eighteen months on the road and leans into it. She has enough to worry about without borrowing trouble.

***

_Change of plans. Meet us at Rockos in 30._

Alyssa scowls down at the text. She and Dan are supposed to be meeting for a cocktail - preferably both shrimp and gin-based - after a long day. Week? Month? Honestly, she’s lost count. It was meant to be a quiet, relaxing evening, a moment stolen from their insane schedules for her to drop her aching mental walls and give her bond a break. 

No one goes to Rockos, though, for quiet or relaxation. People go to Rockos to see and be seen, to nibble at hors d’oeuvres and pretend that they’re not going to stop off for a slice of extra-large greasy pizza on the way home. Rockos stinks of Tommy and whatever senate staffer he’s been chasing this week.

Her suspicions are confirmed as she shoves her Blackberry into her pocket and enters. It’s loud and artistically dark and she has to push her way - quite literally - through the first ten-foot wall of people, until Tommy waves at her from his spot at the bar. There’s a brunette next to him, young and tall and vaguely familiar. She’s leaning towards him, laugh lines around her mouth telling Alyssa everything she needs to know.

“We’ve hijacked a table in the back,” Tommy grins, handing a tray of drinks over a sea of heads. “Can you bring these with you? I’ll be there in a minute.”

Alyssa laughs despite herself and takes the tray from him, grateful for her days waitressing as she balances them precariously and barrels through the rest of the crowd to their table very literally as far in the back as they can get. It’s even darker back here, and Alyssa can just make out the blue of Dan’s eyes from where he’s shoved into the back of the corner booth. Alyssa drops the drinks onto the table, “courtesy of Tommy.”

“Finally.” Lovett looks up from his argument with Jon to grin at her. “Tommy promised us these an hour ago.”

Jon shakes his head fondly. “Fifteen minutes, tops.”

“Well,” Alyssa pushes past Ben’s chair to collapse onto the cushions next to Dan, “he won’t be coming back anytime soon, so I’d take advantage of these.”

“I knew it,” Jon sighs. “He said he wanted to come here for the whiskey selection.”

“If by whiskey selection,” Dan laughs, bumping Alyssa’s knee with his, “you mean that new associate from the counsel’s office.”

“Even I knew that,” Lovett laughs, reaching across the table for the glass of bar pretzels. “But this fancy mustard is almost worth it.”

“Almost,” Dan deadpans. He pushes the plate of bruschetta appetizers towards Alyssa with a flash of apology through the spot where their knees are touching. “This wasn’t my idea.”

“No shit,” Alyssa laughs, taking one of the toasts and lifting up onto her knee so that she can reach the mustard. “You’re right, this isn’t half bad.”

“Told you,” Lovett grins. He reaches for the tray of drinks, pushing one in front of Jon and grabbing a second. "Tommy’s not going to be needing this anytime soon. Squatter’s rights, right?”

Alyssa grins, reaching forward to take it from him. “You’re my new favorite.”

Lovett flushes a little, his shoulders shimmying happily with the kind of real, true smile she hasn’t quite seen from him yet. Most of what Alyssa knows about him she’s learned second hand, from the way Jon starts laughing halfway through every story he tells about him and the way Tommy rolls his eyes fondly every time he complains about Lovett’s take on household chores. It’s almost worth the extravagantly expensive drinks and mediocre bruschetta to see him outside of the office.

“That means a lot,” Lovett winks, reaching for the last drink and pushing it across the table.

Alyssa smirks, “not easy praise,” and raises her own drink to her mouth as a shiver runs down her spine, followed by a rush of feelings so overwhelming that she tips forward, just barely catching herself on the edge of the table. Whiskey splashes over the rim of her glass, cool and sticky on her fingers, but she barely feels it as her mind bursts awake as if she’s been asleep her entire life and she’s dragged out of her body and into-

The paleness of Lovett’s fingers, warm where they’re pressed against hers. The dip of his middle and index fingers, calloused and rough from holding a pen. The softness of his palm, a little sweaty, a little smaller than she expected them to be.

The flashes of chestnut and mahogany as the low light of the Edison bulbs bounce off his close-cut curls.

The softness of the skinny jeans he’d changed into before leaving the office, sculpted just right to fit the curve of his thighs and the crook of his knees.

The exact height of him and the way he smells, like Diet Coke and the stale air of the White House and the bitterness of the fancy mustard clinging to his thumbnail and something else that’s sweet and alluring and-

Fuck. Alyssa’s already leaning across the table before she slams her walls into place. She can’t be- and even if she was, Lovett hasn’t made his sexuality a secret. She needs to get herself the fuck together.

Slowly, so slowly, her senses come back to her. She can still feel the warmth of him but now she can hear the chatter of the bar, she can see the dim light of their booth, she can feel the coolness of her glass under one palm and the edge of the table digging into her other and the- 

Wait. If she has both of her hands- 

She flicks her eyes over to Dan’s glass, Lovett leaning halfway across the table to slide it over, their index fingers brushing.

Alyssa pulls her knee away from Dan’s and the warmth disappears.

Alyssa shivers again, overwhelmed, this time, by absence rather than by presence. She tries to reach for the feelings again, but they're distant and opaque, like she’s watching them through a film strip. Like they’re not hers to have or to keep.

And if they’re not hers, well, isn’t that the biggest surprise of the fucking century?

***

"We're going out." Alyssa leans against the door jamb and crosses her arms over her chest. She's already wearing her coat and the hat with the pom-pom that Moosie had sent her as a _welcome back to DC_ present, and she isn't about to take no for an answer.

Dan blinks up at her, his eyes blurry and his pen tapping against a thick briefing book. He hasn't gotten closer than a foot to her since Rockos, but she can still feel the low thrum of exhaustion pulsing through their bruised bond. "I need to finish this."

Alyssa pulls his coat from its hook and holds it open. "If we go now, we can have two drinks and still be up with time to spare before senior staff tomorrow."

"You have a high opinion of my tolerance these days," he sighs, but he's already pushing back from his desk.

"I put that into my equation," she promises, trying not to shiver as he steps into his coat and her fingers brush his shoulders. He doesn't pull away. Not that she can make sense of the mess of sleepless nights and circular questions that flow through their bond, but it’s a relief to know that the deep bruises under his eyes aren’t because of her.

“Stop thinking so loud,” he groans. He bends down, reaching for his messenger bag and dislodging her hands. “And buy me a drink before you say another word out loud.”

“Not even about Dey's revenge on that handsy Ukranian diplomat from the luncheon last week? It includes the ghost of Willie Lincoln," she needles, falling into step beside him.

“Well,” Dan laughs, wrapping his fingers around her elbow as they step outside, “that might be okay.”

Alyssa grins, launching into the story and exaggerating it to last the entire walk to the Hyatt bar. She floods their bond with her memories of Dey’s laughter and the look on the diplomat’s face, flowing in and around Dan’s confusion and distress. She feels him relax, slowly, slowly, slowly, the color of his thoughts splitting from an indistinguishable sludge into the darkest midnight blue of his professional bond with POTUS, the pinks and reds of their soulmate bond, and the beginnings of something the most brilliant green, shimmering and warm and almost too beautiful to look at.

Alyssa swallows around the feel of it, heavy and too big for her chest, as they're lead to their table and Dan pushes his coat off, his shoulders already slumping as she takes some of the weight that he’s been carrying. His cheeks look pinker, rounder, healthier after just a sip of gin. His smile looks softer, matching the easing warmth of his thoughts, as he lets go of the office and settles into her presence.

Half of Alyssa thinks that she should send him home, tuck him in with an airplane bottle of whiskey and a flannel blanket, and let him sleep for the next twenty-four hours before she asks this of him. But the other half, the half that schedules ten-day international trips from her Blackberry and knows that she’s one of the smartest minds in the Oval during any given meeting, knows that if she doesn’t do this now, while he’s soft and vulnerable and open to her, then she won’t ever do it. 

She leans forward, pressing her fingers to his wrist. She gives him time to pull away, counts down from three-one thousand, and only when he doesn’t does she ask, “so, guys, huh?”

He chokes on his drink, spilling gin across both their fingers. His thoughts swirl, a storm of denial and self-recrimination, before they coalesce around, “so, Lovett,” as the floodgates open and she’s swept up in a series of memories so crisp and clear and warm that she can’t help but let herself be dragged under.

Lovett rolling into the office on one of those ridiculous, embarrassing, not-at-all respectable electric scooters, pink glittery streamers tied to the handlebars. He’s wearing a Wizards hat that is almost assuredly Dan's, pulled low over his mess of greasy curls, deserving none of the warmth she feels deep in Dan’s chest.

Lovett lying facedown on Dan’s couch, snoring into his - the White House’s, Alyssa corrects through the bond - pillows. His pants are riding up, his ankles pale and vulnerable, and there’s sweat pooling in the small of his back. Lovett waking up, his eyes wild until they land on Dan with an embarrassed quip about writer's block naps before tripping over to his own desk. The way Dan had leaned in his own doorway, watching Lovett type furiously with a coffee cup and open cans of Diet Coke and Red Bull all in easy reach, for longer than any communications director can afford to waste.

Lovett in the back of a crowded room, his tie straight and pressed around his neck, his jacket buttoned in the middle. The wide grin he gives when POTUS hits the first three of his jokes on _taxes_, and the small, private, proud smile he gives when POTUS gets into the intricacies of his economic policies.

The warmth Dan feels when Lovett turns that same smile on him. The flare of that too bright green when their fingers brush. The attention Lovett garners with every twitch of his fingers and every word he utters, as if he’s pulling Dan into his orbit, as if Lovett’s the sun and Dan has no chance against the pull of his gravity, as if he’s falling further and further away from Alyssa, as if he’s not even putting up a fucking fight.

Alyssa can’t breathe through the weight pressing down on her chest. Her eyes are wet and scratchy, her fingers singed from the heat of Dan’s skin. She snatches her hand back, pushing all of Dan’s joy and anxiety back towards him as she reaches for her walls. She feels just a hint of his guilt and confusion before she slams her barriers into place.

Alyssa reaches for her drink, her hands shaking as she presses her mental burns against the cool glass, and jokes, “only small things between platonic soulmates, huh?”

“It’s not-” Dan’s face twists, his hand reaching towards her before diverting to his own glass. “It’s nothing. Nothing’s ever going to come of it.”

Alyssa shuffles back through the memories, as clear now as they’d been when she was touching him. She sees the way Lovett had smiled, small and real, when Dan had given him that stupid Wizards hat. She sees how comfortable Lovett was commandeering Dan’s couch and how soft he was in the moment of vulnerability between sleep and waking. She sees how Lovett had sought Dan out during the economics speech, as if Dan was the only one he wanted to share such a private victory with.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Alyssa ducks her head, staring intently into her purse as she searches for a twenty. She can’t bear to see the hope in his eyes any more than she can bear the disappointment he must be feeling emanating from the mess of her side of the bond. “I’ve got an earlier morning than I remembered. Drink another one on me, yeah?”

She drops the twenty and leaves without waiting for an answer.

***

Alyssa can count on one hand the reasons she’s ever had for blocking Dan out. Private meetings with POTUS. Hours in the situation room. Personnel dealings with their direct employees that are private and personal.

The first time she lowered her blocks entirely, it was early on in the campaign. They’d been struggling in South Carolina and Alyssa had been working herself up for days to make a number of staffing changes that she knew had to be done, despite how much they made her heart hurt. She’d spent a full hour curled in her office afterwards, crying out the worst of it, before she’d let Dan touch her, and even then she’d swamped the memories with an emotional rant about the lack of Fresca in the campaign fridges, more for her staff’s privacy than for her own.

The first time she’d done it in the White House, she’d come out of the situation room with her tail between her legs, a list of excuses already brewing about the meaninglessness of security clearances and the importance of her job. He’d met her in her office, though, his ankles crossed on her desk and a bottle of wine already poured. He’d distracted her with a debate about _The OC _that they’d been having for months and hadn’t touched her until he’d been absolutely sure that she’d pulled herself together.

She’s never, in all those times, blocked him out for more than a few hours and by the end of the first day she’s aching with missing him. She knows she should be embarrassed by how integral he’s become to her everyday existence, but by the second day she has to admit that she’s forgotten how to live in her own mind without him. Her thoughts feel loose, unmoored, like they’re banging aimlessly around her head without his steadiness to center herself around. There’s a gaping maw where he’s supposed to be, a dark hole at the base of her spine that sends shivers through her body that no number of blankets and quilts and winter gloves will warm her from.

In her less generous moments, Alyssa lets herself sink, jealously, into Dan’s memories of Lovett. She lets her chest warm at the sight of his smile, she lets the weight and strength of his gravity fill the empty feeling in her chest, she lets herself imagine how Dan must be feeling now, so full and warm and content that he doesn’t even have time to miss the sound of her voice or the color of their bond.

On Tuesday, though, she takes a short break from the schedule she’s packed as tight as possible to pick up her lunch order from the mess. The sight of him stops her in her tracks before she’s even gotten past the doorway. His shirt is wrinkled, his cheeks sallow and thin, his hands shaking around the largest cup of coffee the mess offers. 

She takes a step forward, towards him, before she realizes what she’s doing and he looks up like, even with their bond closed, he knows instinctively when she’s close. His eyes are like ice, pale and shot through with silver and for a brief, aching moment she wants to go to him, wants to reach for his hand, wants to let him in so that he can make sense of all the ugly feelings lodged in her chest and her mind.

Before she can get a step further, though, Jon jostles Dan’s shoulder and they both turn to see who Jon’s waving at. Lovett, standing in the other doorway, his hands shoved into his pockets and his eyes flicking from the table to Alyssa and back again. “Over here,” Jon calls, his voice boisterous even in the crowded mess. Dan turns back to her, but Alyssa breaks his gaze before she can feel the pang of Dan doing it first.

“Where’s our lunch?” Dey frowns when Alyssa makes it back upstairs, her forehead shining with sweat and her entire body shaking.

“I-” Alyssa shrugs, adopting whatever humor she has left. “I forgot, silly me. I’ve got this meeting on the Hill in ten, can you grab it? I’ll eat later.”

Dey stops asking if Alyssa wants to go out for lunch after that and instead picks her up sandwiches and half salads from the lunch meetings she’s started covering while Alyssa locks herself in her office. It’s amazing how much work she can catch up on when she doesn’t open the door for anyone but POTUS. Not even Dan, who does valiantly come by with her favorite slice of pecan pie, a gallon of coffee, and a full hour free on Wednesday. Alyssa’s chest aches as she listens to Dey tell him that she’s not to be interrupted, not even by her soulmate.

She eats the entire slice in spite, though, after he leaves it with Dey and walks heavily back to his own office.

She sleeps on the couch that night and doesn’t come out again until Thursday afternoon, when Rahm calls her to the Hill for a healthcare discussion that she is, in his words, “an integral part of.” She grabs her briefcase and her coat and sighs deeply as she leaves her office, hoping against hope that Dan has more important things to do than play the good cop to Rahm’s bad cop with the majority whip. 

She’s wondering what kind of sacrifice she should leave to the political gods when she hears “hold the elevator” and throws her hand out before she can process the voice.

“Thanks,” Lovett breathes, jogging into the elevator, “I’ve got this meeting on the Hill and I’m running late, what’s new?, and I-”

He freezes, looking up at her. His chest is heaving with exertion and she can’t help but note the way his curls fall flat against his forehead and his tie is hanging askew.

She holds up her briefing book. “With Durbin?”

“Yeah.” Lovett nods slowly. His eyes are swampy and dark. “I know I’m not your favorite person, but, do you mind if I walk with you? I could take the long way, but, as I said, I’m already late.”

Alyssa sighs. “I wouldn’t wish Rahm’s wrath on my worst enemy.”

The elevator pings and Alyssa steps out first, feeling him fall into step beside her. He’s only wearing his suit jacket and he shivers in the cool breeze and his teeth chatter as he says, “I’ve always wanted to be someone’s worst enemy.”

“We all have dreams.”

“I’ll have to find a new one, now. Juggling’s a good backup dream.” Lovett swallows, loud enough for her to hear. 

She lets the silence descend around them until they reach the bottom of the stairs up to the Capitol. He takes the first step, his eyes on his feet so that he doesn’t miss one as he murmurs, so quiet that she can barely hear him, “he’s miserable without you.”

Alyssa frowns at his back. “What would you know about that?”

“I know that he won’t so much as look at me.” Lovett sighs, turning to catch her gaze. She doesn’t need to be bonded with him to read everything he’s feeling in the depths of his irises and the wrinkles around the edges of his mouth. “Which is ridiculous. As if I could come between you two even if I wanted to.”

The wind whips through Alyssa’s coat, but Lovett doesn’t so much as shiver this time. “Lovett-”

“He’s yours,” Lovett shrugs.

“Soulmates-”

“Are choices,” he finishes for her. “Options, roads traveled or not traveled, and I know where I’m not wanted. I won’t make a move.”

“That’s-”

“Extraordinarily kind? Send me a few bottles of wine for Hanukkah.”

“You’ve _got _to stop finishing my sentences.”

He sighs, but doesn’t look away from her. “Don’t make this harder than it already is. He’s yours, he always has been and he always will be. Just promise me that you’ll take care of him?”

Alyssa’s heart beats so loudly in her ears that she barely feels herself nod.

“Good.” Lovett adjusts the papers in his arms. “We’re going to be late.”

He turns, taking the rest of the stairs at a jog. Alyssa watches him disappear before she takes the first step.

***

“Why don’t you let my team look over these notes and offer a few suggestions,” Alyssa offers, tacking on, “sir,” as an afterthought.

“Sheila’s put a lot of work into the schedule,” the Vice President says, voice a little clipped. “All I need is for your approval on the use of Air Force One.”

“Sure, I can do that,” Alyssa shrugs, looking down at the itinerary in front of her. “But this is a bit of a mess. It’s no bother to help out.”

He grits his teeth, the muscles of his thighs bunching under his notebook. “That’s awfully gracious, but Sheila’s got it.”

“I don’t-” Alyssa starts, but she’s interrupted as POTUS stands, offering his hand to the VP, “thanks for coming by, Joe, we’ll make sure to get Air Force One sorted.”

The VP gets up, offering a stilted nod in Alyssa’s direction before he disappears. Alyssa sighs, shuffling the papers in her folder and frowning down as the words and times on the itinerary float in front of her eyes. She’s tired. Scratch that, she’s exhausted. She hadn’t slept any better the night before than she had the week of nights before that, and she had still been lying in bed, turning Lovett’s words over again and again, when her morning alarm had gone off. She feels hollow, empty, and she has to grip the edge of the couch before she tips over.

“Alyssa,” POTUS says, his voice soft and all the more devastating for it. “You know how little interest I have in office gossip-”

He opens their bond just enough for her to feel the hint of a lie under a steady stream of frustration and concern. She wants to grab onto it, pull it into her, let it fill all the empty, dark spaces yelling out for light. She holds herself back, though, swallowing around how much she _wants_. “I do, sir.”

“So I’m not going to ask any questions,” he nods. “I’m just going to tell you to go, take the weekend, and by Monday morning I expect to have you back here, ready to go. You hear me?”

He closes the bond tightly and she tips forward, choking on his words and the loss. “I do.”

“Good.” He pats her knee. “Now get outta here.”

She nods, walking backwards out of the Oval, past Rahm’s office, past the Roosevelt room, directly into Dan’s office, without passing Go, without checking in with their secretary, without so much as knocking. He looks up from his desk, frown lines creasing his forehead and a mess of papers spread out around his computer. She slides her clogs off, pulling her legs under her as she folds herself onto his couch. “Have you heard about Rhonda?”

Dan frowns. His cheeks are flushed and his fingers tap, anxiously, against the edge of his desk. He doesn’t throw her out. “The new intern?”

Alyssa nods. “Dey and Jon told her that POTUS does his calls with the Kenyan ambassador in Swahili.”

Dan rolls his chair back so he can cross his ankle over his knee. She can see the faint twist of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “POTUS can’t count to ten in Swahili on a good day.”

“She doesn’t know that,” Alyssa shrugs. “She bought a Rosetta Stone and last night I caught her performing a fertility dance in Jon’s office.”

Dan raises an eyebrow. “In order to woo POTUS or Jon?”

Alyssa giggles into her wrist. “She thought it was a rain dance.”

Dan snorts. “I wish I had been there.”

“Me too,” Alyssa says, quicker than she can think about it. There’s a thread loose on the seam of her pants and she focuses on it, her voice dropping. “POTUS kicked me out of the Oval.”

“Alyssa-”

“He told me I have to get my shit together.” Alyssa tears the thread and takes a deep breath, looking up at him. His eyes are the palest blue she’s ever seen and her whole body aches. She holds out her hand. “_Please_.”

He trips over his feet, barely pushing far enough away from his desk before he’s tripping over to her, falling onto the couch at her side. His hand is shaking when he takes hers and she realizes with a start that hers are, too. She clings to him, a lifeline in a storm as her careful attempts to open their bond fall under the rush of emotions that flow between them, tearing down her walls and drowning her in a white water rush of loneliness and confusion and self-recrimination.

Dan holds her just as tightly, the line of his body tight against hers as his presence refills those empty spaces inside her. He lights up the black hole at the base of her spine, warms the chill in her chest, soothes over the rough scratches and scars she’s given herself in the week they’ve been apart. He lays her bare in front of him, sees every ugly, jealous part of her and answers each one with calm, steady forgiveness.

The bond they’ve been cultivating for the past two years suddenly feels loose and flimsy as it solidifies between them. She’s given him the worst parts of herself and, she realizes as their bond codifies in the empty space in her mind, he’d shown her his, too, that night at Rockos and, again, at the Hyatt. In the paleness of Lovett’s fingers, Dan had shown her his worst fears. In the warmth of Lovett’s laugh, Dan had invited her into the darkest recesses of his insecurities. In the tingling of Lovett’s skin against his, Dan had let her feel his deepest scars.

He answers her apologies with his own, their tears mixing together on his shoulder. Alyssa doesn’t know how long they sit like that, so close together that she has no idea where she ends and he begins. But when she pulls back to wipe her eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, she feels along the edges of their new bond. It pulses back at her, strong and smooth and steady, pulsing with a new understanding and belief and permanence.

“Soulmates are choices,” she whispers, giggling a little into his shoulder. She feels lightheaded, like she’s downed a full bottle of wine without having taken a sip.

Dan kisses the top of her head. “What?”

She shakes her head, pulling back just far enough to see him. His cheeks are flushed with color, the worry lines in his forehead smoothed, laughter breaking loose around his mouth. She grins at him. “Nothing. Just, something someone a hell of a lot smarter than me said.”

Dan laughs. “Impossible.”

“Apparently not.” Alyssa slides her legs out from under her and reaches for his hand. “I owe you a meal, or a dozen. Come have dinner with me?”

“You don’t need to ask,” Dan breathes, letting her pull him up. “There’s that new tapas place? I think it’s walking distance.”

For the first time, Alyssa believes him. She nods, reaching for her hand. “Sounds perfect.”

***

“I really do have a lot of work to make up for,” Dan sighs the next evening. “You might have been suffering in a bubble of productivity this past week, but I am useless when I’m moping.”

“No shit,” Alyssa snorts, wrapping her fingers around his elbow and pulling him with her. Winter’s finally slipping into spring and she’s starting to regret the coat she’d thrown on before dragging him out of his office at 7pm on a Saturday. “But POTUS ordered us out of the building for the weekend.”

“POTUS ordered you out of the building,” Dan raises an eyebrow. “For talking back to the _Vice President_.”

Alyssa shrugs. “I’ll send him a bouquet of bagels from that place he loves. He’ll forgive me.”

“Of course he will.” Dan sighs as Alyssa pulls them to a stop in front of the new pizza place on 14th. According to Dey, the wine is decently priced and the wood fire is to die for, but Dan frowns at her. “You hate places like this.”

Alyssa holds the door open for him. “It’s a good thing I’m not staying then.”

“What-?” Dan asks, then stops. 

Lovett’s sitting at a table in the back, dressed in his best office sweater and a pair of jeans that hug his thighs. He wipes his palms against them as he stands. “Hi.”

Dan looks back at Alyssa, a question flowing through their bond, barely concealing the pulse of _hope_ and _maybe _and _fear_. “You set me up.”

Alyssa grins. “I also bought your first bottle of wine. You can thank me later.”

“Alyssa-”

She pulls out his chair, her hands steady on his shoulders as she meets his rush of emotions with _don’t screw it up_. “Sit, drink, get to know each other. I’m not going anywhere.”

Lovett’s fingers twist together and he takes a step forward to follow her as she steps back. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Take care of him,” she smiles softly at him, grinning at the look of surprise that crosses his face. “That’ll be more than enough.”

He nods, stepping back to the table, his expression serious as he watches her go. 

Alyssa smiles to herself as she steps into the evening, feeling a burst of laughter through their bond before Dan closes it gently. She feels a jolt of fear, but when she reaches out, she can still feel their bond, pulsing warm and steady in the back of her mind. She grins, pulling back. He’ll tell her everything in the morning and, until then, she has plans of her own.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are much appreciated!


End file.
